In Defense Of The Mom From “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

I love Christmas. Everything about the holiday makes me happy– decorated trees, Christmas lights, gifts, cocktails, and even Christmas music. Invariably, the Christmas episodes on TV shows are my favorite, I can’t get enough of Christmas movies, and I cry every time Meg Ryan decorates the damn tree in “You’ve Got Mail.” Then again, that doesn’t feel like my fault. Joni Mitchell is playing. What, am I supposed to sit there, not crying?

There’s a few standbys around this time of year that I’ve come to expect: weird dudes trying to get girls to go on horse-drawn carriage rides, holiday parties where I am the only person not wearing an ugly sweater, and some tired version of “‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’: Is This Seasonal Favorite Really About Rape Culture?” It happens every year, and every year, the answer is yes. Yes, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” really crosses a lot of boundaries and makes many people (me included) very uncomfortable. We should banish it from our Christmas Pandora (yeah, I still use Pandora because I find Spotify to be confusing. What of it?) stations and move on to a new song.

Who here likes “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?” No one, obviously. That song is weird and gross and you know why? The creep factor doesn’t come from some deeply voiced dude being like “you’re hurting my pride by not letting me put my candy cane inside you and if you go outside you will die from inclement weather.” No, it’s far worse. The kid is the creep.

First of all, let’s take this from the infidelity angle. Let’s just say your mom is cheating on dad with Santa Claus and you’re peeping around the corner like some sick lunatic gleefully watching your mom do weird stuff to some dude who’s not your dad. If you see that, shouldn’t you have other feelings? Like “oh my goodness, my mother is having an affair with an intruder dressed in a weird garment. I’m probably going to have to go to therapy.” Also, I hope you can understand that your mother is a person and if she cheated on your dad, she’s not a bad person necessarily, she’s a person who did a bad thing. And cheating is never acceptable but I hope in time you’ll come to realize that even your parents aren’t infallible.

But I don’t buy that infidelity racket one bit. Hey kid. Listen to me, you dumb idiot. Santa doesn’t exist. That’s your dad who went to the store, bought a freaking Santa suit, and put it on to entertain you. And then to entertain your mom. Maybe you haven’t had the talk yet and are curious about sex and sexual things, and in that case–well actually in that case good for you. Let your mom get in on with Santa and feel free to bring it up with your parents as soon as you feel comfortable. Questions are healthy and it’s normal to wonder about sex stuff. But stop being a little dweeb about it.

We all have Santa sex fantasies and if you disagree with me you’re entitled to your wrong opinion. Santa Claus is a dude who enters our chimneys to give us his sack full of gifts. That is literally the definition of heterosexual intercourse. Your dad was clearly just fulfilling one of your mom's fantasies and you have to make it all weird. Way to go, idiot.

It can be hard for parents to have sex when their obnoxious children keep trying to watch their foreplay and then write jingles about it. It’s in your best interest for your parents to have an active and healthy sex life–the happier they are in their relationship with each other, the happier your family will be. Nobody likes to think about it, but happy parents are probably boning on the regular. So stay in your damn room when the costumes come out.

In addition to hating the song’s narrator, I truly hate the song, too. It’s exceptionally gendered to an insane degree. The narrative includes the mom kissing Santa, the mom tickling Santa, but makes no mention of Santa sitting here with a giant boner in his Santa suit. Is the mom raping Santa in this situation? Of course not. Santa is a willing participant in the adult sexual experience, but for some reason we’re only spying on Mom here. This is blatant shaming of a woman for experiencing and acting on sexual desire while we paint the man as just standing there, a victim of her sexual wiles.

Here’s what I think of when I think of the Mom from “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus:” a woman who just wanted to get her’s. Moms (and dads) work so hard to clean up after their ungrateful, vomit-covered spawn every day until they turn 18 years old. We like to think that we get easier as we get older, but to our parents, we’re just slightly more articulate vomit-covered babies, even as teenagers. And then we do stuff like smoke cigarettes or meet guys on Myspace while our parents have to think about whether or not that dude from Myspace will cut off all our toes and make a shrine to our profile pictures. So you know who deserves a good giving it to her? Mom. And if she wants it from her sex partner dressed up as Santa Claus? Merry Christmas.